President Joe Biden on Thursday issued unprecedented executive orders to require that workers get the COVID-19 vaccine.
- Employers with over 100 employees must mandate that their employees get the COVID-19 vaccine or face weekly COVID testing. OSHA will fine employers up to $14,000 per violation for not enforcing the new presidential vaccine mandate.
- Biden ordered all healthcare businesses that receive Medicare or Medicaid dollars to require that their employees be vaccinated.
- Tightened rules requiring that all federal employees or employees of federal contractors get the new vaccine.
- Asked states to require that all teachers and school employees be vaccinated.
- Asked that sports and entertainment venues require vaccination or proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test for entry.
“We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers,” Biden said Thursday in a speech explaining his orders.
Alabama Republicans were quick to react to the president’s actions.
Congressman Robert Aderholt, R-Alabama, said: “While I am certainly not anti-vaccine, in fact, I have been fully vaccinated, I don’t believe the federal government should be forcing employees and contractors of the executive branch to be vaccinated. And I fail to find anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, or in powers granted to the executive branch by Congress, any authority to mandate that private companies require their employees to be vaccinated. I expect this mandate for private companies to be stopped very quickly by the courts.”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said:
“Once again, President Biden has missed the mark. His outrageous, overreaching mandates will no doubt be challenged in the courts. Placing more burdens on both employers and employees during a pandemic with the rising inflation rates and lingering labor shortages is totally unacceptable.”
“Alabamians have stepped up by rolling up their sleeves to get the covid-19 vaccine, increasing our doses administered significantly in recent weeks,” Ivey said. “We have done so without mandates from Washington D.C. or Montgomery. I’ve made it abundantly clear: I support the science and encourage folks taking the vaccine. However, I am absolutely against a government mandate on the vaccine, which is why I signed the vaccine passport ban into law here in Alabama. This is not the role of the government.”
“These mandates are yet another example of President Biden taking away individual freedoms with the stroke of a pen,” Ivey said. “Getting the vaccine should be a personal decision. As my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are fond of saying, ‘my body, my choice.’”
Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth said: “Biden’s executive orders violate the freedoms and liberties that our nation was founded upon, and I believe his unconstitutional vaccine mandates will be overturned. It’s time for all freedom-loving Americans to rally around Alabama’s state motto – WE DARE DEFEND OUR RIGHTS!”
Congressman Barry Moore, R-Alabama, said:
“President Biden’s federal vaccine mandate is yet another breathtaking and blatantly unconstitutional power-grab by an out-of-control Administration. The Biden Administration’s statement that issuing vaccine mandates was ‘not the role of the federal government’ has now been revealed as a barefaced lie, just like the President’s claim that he had a plan for Afghanistan. It is clear to Americans and our allies abroad that deceit, ineptitude, and even subversion are at the foundation of this Administration.”
““The nation that Americans have defended for over two centuries is under siege from within, and Americans will not and must not allow it to continue unchallenged,” Moore said. “If Joe Biden does not step down, Congress must immediately move to impeach him before he causes more irreversible damage to our economy, freedoms, and global prestige.”
State Rep. Mike Jones, R-Andalusia, said: “I will sponsor a resolution in the Alabama Legislature to oppose Biden’s OSHA vaccine mandate. Businesses should have the right to determine their own business policies and individuals should have the right to determine their own health choices. I am vaccinated and strongly encourage vaccines but not mandates. If you choose not to be vaccinated, that is your right as an American. Biden’s demands via OSHA regs are antithetical to the principles of individual and economic freedom. The free market, not the government, should mandate how businesses handle these types of situations.”
Jones is running for the Alabama State Senate.
State Rep. Andrew Sorrell, R-Muscle Shoals said: “Biden himself has also changed in a short amount of time. In December he said the following: “I don’t think it should be mandatory, I wouldn’t demand it to be mandatory.””
“There is only one solution to this insane government overreach: states need to stand up and say no,” Sorrell said. “Alabama should lead by nullifying this unconstitutional executive order and prosecuting any federal employees who attempt to enforce it here. If states can ignore federal marijuana laws, they can certainly ignore the most egregious power grab I’ve ever seen a President make.”
Sorrell added: “Let me be very clear: This post is not in the least intended to be anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine. Whether or not you choose to get a vaccine should be YOUR decision. If you study it and decide to get it…great, I support your choice…but I will NEVER be OK with a President making that choice for you!”
Sorrell is a GOP candidate for state auditor.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jessica Fair Taylor said: “As if we didn’t need more proof that liberals will do everything they can to claim more power! Biden’s vaccine mandate is a deliberate attempt to try to push past his failures in Afghanistan. There’s no science here, only political calculus for a failing administration.”
Taylor said: “We all should resist this absurd abuse of Federal power. Let’s fight this tyranny and ring loud the bells of freedom!”
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Katie Britt said: “Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate is yet another anti-free market overreach. This administration, going around Congress once again, is trying to change the fabric of our nation from being built on individual responsibility to being marred by dependency on big government. Forcing businesses to do something against their will tramples the free market principles that have made America great.”
“The decision to get vaccinated should be freely made by individuals in consultation with their doctor, not at the unilateral decree of Biden and his bureaucrats,” Britt said. “As I’ve said before, I chose to get the vaccine after consulting my family’s doctor. But the federal government has no business forcing employers or individuals to do this. It’s that simple.”
Liberty Counsel issued an opinion questioning the legality of Biden’s mass directives.
“The federal government cannot mandate these COVID injections under authorization of emergency use (EUA),” the conservative legal group wrote. “There is NO FDA-approved COVID shot available in the United States. Furthermore, the shots cannot be mandatory under Title VII. In general, employee vaccine religious exemption requests must be accommodated, where a reasonable accommodation exists without undue hardship to the employer, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Many people hold sincere religious beliefs against taking any vaccines, or taking those derived from aborted fetal cell lines, or taking those sold by companies that profit from the sale of vaccines and other products derived from abortion.”
“Employees and employers also have constitutional protections against this lawless Biden mandate,” Liberty Counsel maintained. “In addition, employees may also claim religious exemptions under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. This law applies to all levels of the federal government. Finally, Biden’s lawless mandate also collides with many state laws, including those that ban vaccine passports.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said: “The Biden administration has no authority to force any employee or employer to receive the COVID shots. We will challenge his lawless executive order.”
To this point, the COVID-19 global pandemic has killed 674,547 Americans. Some 1,929 Americans were reported dead from COVID on Thursday alone, even though the COVID-19 vaccine has been available since early December and is completely free to everyone.
